Protest organizer Ryan McElveen, who enters a master's program at Columbia this fall, meets the press.PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

As global temperatures rise, so does Charlottesville's profile in a worldwide debate. Two events last Friday highlighted the anger and frustration felt on both sides as Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli continues his quest to peek at the early musings of Michael Mann, the former UVA climate professor and creator of the doomsday-invoking "hockey stick graph."

"Ken Cuccinelli wants to take away the most precious things we can leave to the next generation: a healthy environment and a healthy and strong university. Don't let the history books read, 'When climate scientist Michael Mann was ignored, the planet burned up.'"

So said Ryan McElveen. The 2008 UVA graduate had been hoping that at least 50 people would appear for the protest he launched with some emails and flyers. He chose Friday, August 20, because that was the day that a judge, just a mile away, was hearing arguments on whether Cuccinelli's inquest could move forward. Turns out that's also the eve of move-in for the fall semester at UVA.

"Bad timing," McElveen admitted as just two students and two professors rallied with him on the marble steps of the UVA Rotunda.

Meanwhile, mere footsteps away, the Corner district was teeming with back-to-school pandemonium. As pedestrians baked under a sunny sky that pushed the day's top temperature to 92 degrees, any thirst for protest gave way to thirst of a more primal kind.

"Oh, yeah, I was there," fibbed one coed as she reached for a Diet Cheerwine, part of a radio station's sidewalk soda giveaway. "I didn't know about it," explained another Cheerwine grabber.

Back at the rally, microbiologist Jay Brown wondered how many people might have died if polio vaccine developer Jonas Salk had to endure a Cuccinelli-style inquest, and another faculty member cast the inquest investigation in similarly stark terms.

"The political right in this country hates the University," said anthropology professor Richard Handler. "If it is a politically motivated attack on a scientific position, then it's a dishonorable and shameful misuse of governmental power, and I would hope that voters, the next time Mr. Cuccinelli stands for an elected office, would reject him on that basis."

Downtown, things were a little cooler. Inside the packed Albemarle County Courthouse, louvered blinds, powerful air conditioning, and the steely demeanor of a retired judge combined for calm debate.

Charles Battig was there. A retired anesthesiologist with a master's degree in electrical engineering, Battig has become something of a senior statesman urging skepticism over Mann's belief that humans have spiked world temperatures, which indeed have been fluctuating for eons between ice ages and tropical heat. Battig contends that the approximately half a million dollars in public money that Mann's studies consumed while at UVA give Cuccinelli ample right to probe.

"People are free to say whatever they want to say," says Battig, "but when you speak with the benefit of taxpayer money, then you're under extra scrutiny."

Extra scrutiny has abounded since last fall when a trove of emails was leaked from a British university. Promptly dubbed Climategate, the leaks showed Mann and colleagues as occasionally petty and potentially worse.

Although the word "trick" in the most prominent of the stolen emails–- a missive sent to (not from) Mann–- has been explained away, the words "hide the decline" are still causing heartburn for the climate-warming crowd, even as various university internal investigations seem to be going their way.

In July, a group of four prominent organizations including the ACLU and Charlottesville's own Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, filed an amicus brief with the Albemarle Circuit Court to say that probing a professor is tantamount to kicking America's First Amendment, the one best known for providing freedom of speech.

Like the reasoning employed in the fraternity trial scene in the 1978 film Animal House–- where any punishment of the Delta House becomes an indictment against the entire educational system (and even the United States of America)–- the amicus asserts that professors and universities possess a "constitutional right" to academic freedom, and the brief quotes a 1915 professorial association manifesto that college should be an "inviolable refuge" from the "tyranny of public opinion."

Inquest fan Battig says he wants people to know that the third United Nations panel raising alarm over global warming conveniently forgot, when first predicting 21st-century gloom, to mention the so-called Medieval Warm Period–- when Greenland, for instance, was really green. He suggests that UVA is simply "circling the wagons" in defense.

But that's not the UVA that legal analyst David Heilberg knows. Pointing to self-examinations launched by both the outgoing and incoming UVA presidents in the wake of the May 3 slaying of a female lacrosse player and the more recent suicide of an allegedly bullied literary journal editor, Heilberg contends that UVA can pluck out its own bad apples.

"I can't imagine that UVA would condone academic fraud," says Heilberg, noting that while professors may be officially exempt from the University's vaunted Honor Code, they're still working in a culture "which can self-regulate."

According to his most recent legal brief, the Attorney General might not have gotten involved if UVA had just handed over the emails to the Virginia General Assembly member who first sought them. That would be Delegate Robert Marshall.

A Bible-thumping hero to anti-abortion and anti-same-sex-marriage fans, Marshall may not be popular on campuses, but he (and every other citizen) appear to hold the legal right to obtain Mann's emails, under Virginia's no-nonsense Freedom of Information Act. Marshall asked for them back in December, but UVA spokesperson Carol Wood told him, after what was ostensibly a three-day search, that they'd all been deleted. Mann, after all, had gone off to Penn State to become famous with his hockey stick.

It turns out that UVA had a backup server. And thus spake AG Cuccinelli. As first reported back in April, he issued what's called a Civil Investigative Demand, or CID, under Virginia's FATA, or Fraud Against Taxpayers Act. He hasn't yet sued, but he's certainly not ruling out the option.

The Albemarle hearing was argued for the Commonwealth of Virginia by Wesley G. Russell Jr., who told retired judge Paul Peatross that any ruling against the CID would give UVA "the right to practice fraud."

Although UVA has its own legal team, it brought in Chuck Rosenberg from the D.C.-based firm of Hogan Lovells who argued that "being wrong is not fraud."

If either side were unhappy with letting a judge who teaches part-time at UVA's law school decide such a volatile case, they didn't voice any objection.

"Judge Peatross is a hard worker," says legal analyst Heilberg. "He will really research that thing and make a reasoned decision."

At the conclusion of the hearing, Peatross declined to issue an immediate ruling.

"You've both given me a lot of food for thought," Peatross told the legal teams, and he promised to render a "prompt" decision, "hopefully within the next 10 days."

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Correction/clarification: It was the third, not the first, U.N.-sponsored panel on climate change that omitted the Medieval Warm Period from a key graph. The story has been corrected above.

156 comments

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The Washington Post - for all its supposed puissance (especially among those whose politics coincide with those of the paper's publishers and editorial staff) as a "reputable source" of journalistic professionalism is not a peer-reviewed scientific journal or even a publication staffed and controlled by people with education in the sciences or technology.

Those of us who spent our undergraduate years stepping over the sodden bodies of Journalism majors littering the dormitory corridors of college residence halls have a sharp appreciation of the types of people who put on the mantle of the Fourth Estate.

The one place they could never be found was in the science center.

And here's a "Liberal" spewing yet another logical fallacy or two, beginning with that of the false choice (writing of three "sorts of opponents" of the anthropogenic global climate change hypothesis while blanking out consideration of other explanations for such opposition) and proceeding to the straw man blunder, in which he ignores his disputants' actual positions and substitutes a distorted misrepresentation of those positions.

I have made clear my reasons for opposing the AGW hypothesis as it has been advanced since the late '70s, to the effect that those who have attempted to peddle this bilge have failed to support their propositions in any way that conforms to the requirement for falsifiability (ref. Karl Popper, 1963; online at http://tinyurl.com/dh96v7 ).

Let alone the integrity that Dr. Feynman extolled in his 1974 speech on "Cargo Cult Science."

One writer's recent comments on the warmist intellectual bankruptcy included the following:

"When it comes to the AGW theory, which states that human generated CO2 is the reason for increasing world temperature, there is some wiggle room for its proponents, but not much. If it can be shown that the sum total of other contributing factors is more influential than CO2, then the theory is proven false. Any valid observation which shows CO2's influence is less important to climate change than other factors diminishes the validity of the theory. Moreover, if many of the predictions made by the theory are shown to be false then the theory is weakened Ã¢â?¬â? the death of a thousand cuts scenario.

"If a theory claims to explain climate change and new work shows that there are phenomena that the theory does not explain then that theory is incomplete. If nature shows assertions made by the theory to be wrong, then the theory is false. ...there is dispute among scientists, that nature is still serving up big surprises that climate science is at a loss to explain, that the science is not settled. Given this evidence, for any layman to state otherwise is preposterous, but as Popper himself said, 'irrationalism will use reason too, but without any feeling of obligation.'

"Furthermore, scientific arguments are not won by counting the number of papers written either for or against a particular theory. As was demonstrated above, a single counter example can be sufficient to disprove a theory, no matter how many scientists think the theory to be correct. In science there is an ultimate arbiter Ã¢â?¬â? nature."

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Oh, good. We've got an anonymous "Liberal" with typical attack-marmoset manners demanding that I provide him access to personal information by which he can work injury upon me.

Tsk. Not just vicious, but bereft of netiquette. Try addressing the subjects discussed, kid.

There is among the "Liberals" a powerful tendency to attack the person articulating a position rather than the position itself. This is the logical fallacy of argumentum ad hominem.

But when have "Liberals" ever cared about logic?

Is Dr. Mann's infamous "Hockey Stick" graph a deceptive manipulation of doctored data using bogus computer code or is it not? Were his applications for taxpayer funding based upon knowing misstatements of facts at the time he submitted them, or were they not? Is the UVa administration and Dr. Mann presently evading compliance with investigative demands uttered in accord with Virginia statute law or not?

This anonymous "Liberal" who claims to have "a research doctorate from what was recently rated as the second-best university in the world" (and "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog," too) wants to divert discussion away from these matters.

Matarese claims to have spent his life "relying upon peer-reviewed scientific literature" and yet in defense of his scientific claims he keeps pointing to and quoting from rather dubious and obviously not reviewed websites. That's odd. Surely the great big conspiracy (GBC) of AGW can't be so very competent?

Jason McCain August 30th, 2010 | 12:17am

We need to be careful here. In attacking the bogus science behind AGW we are attacking the very soul of AGW advocates. The cause of AGW allows these pious souls to save us without their having to make any actual sacrifices beyond a little bloviating. Like the meme of the two America's preached by John Edwards. Without the AGW cause these guys might have to move on to another crises upon which they alone will have the requisite "peer reviewed papers" and non-fascist web sites which will save us.

Rich: Dr. Feynman would have crucified the modern AGW crowd. He could smell a rat parading as a scientist. He is missed.

Jason McCain August 29th, 2010 | 9:51pm

Since the late 1960's we've had a ceaseless stream of pontifications about the approaching end of the world. Most of these have issued from environmentalists and EVERYONE of them has FAILED. McElveen needs to seek counseling.

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When the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) blunder surfaced in its present form a bit more than three decades ago, the premise underlying its advancement was correctly considered extraordinarily far-fetched. Whether that's the prevailing opinion today is a question of no validity whatsoever. Science is not done by consensus, and nobody with any real understanding of scientific method gives the least weight at all to the number of silly boogers (with or without academic tenure) plighted thereunto.

Not that far-fetched hypotheses haven't been proven right in the past, but extraordinary explanations of causation require extraordinary support - including objective factual verification that stands up under falsification - before they can be accepted by intellectually honest and therefore skeptical people.

The problem with the AGW hypothesis (back before it became an out-and-out fraud in the early '90s) was that its advocates could not make it admit to falsifiability. In fact, their conduct from the outset has been the SUPPRESSION of objectively verified evidence which supports arguments for the rejection of the AGW hypothesis.

This is the mark of what Richard Feynman (1974) called "Cargo Cult Science," stating that in "Cargo Cult Science" (e.g., the AGW fraud) there is a lack of:

"...a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty Ã¢â?¬â? a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid Ã¢â?¬â? not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you’ve eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked Ã¢â?¬â? to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated."

One recent online commentary on the case at hand has observed that:

"When the attorney general of Virginia sued to force Michael Mann of 'hockey stick' fame to provide the raw data he used, and the complete computer program used to analyze the data, so that 'you' [the average inexpert but taxed and tormented American] could decide, the Faculty Senate of the University of Virginia (where Mann was a professor at the time he defended the hockey stick) declared this request Ã¢â?¬â? Feynman’s request Ã¢â?¬â? to be an outrage. You peons, the Faculty Senate decreed, must simply accept the conclusions of any 'scientific endeavor that has satisfied peer review standards.' Feynman’s Ã¢â?¬â? and the attorney general’s and my own and other scientists’ Ã¢â?¬â? request for the raw data, so we can Ã¢â?¬Å?judge whether a sensible conclusion has been arrived at,” would, according to the Faculty Senate, 'send a chilling message to scientists ”Š and indeed scholars in any discipline.'"

It is not whether carbon dioxide is a trace gas in the atmosphere but rather whether there has been an adequately supported argument that under existing and anticipated conditions, any increase in the concentrations of atmospheric CO2 could possibly induce such severe forcing of the planet's temperature as to precipitate significant changes in the climate, either regionally or globally. Moreover, such forcing would have to overcome negative feedback mechanisms (both well known at the time the AGW blunder began to be bruited and more recently discovered by dint of advancing technology in the fields of cosmology, atmospheric physics, and allied disciplines) which the "Cargo Cult Science" practitioners like Dr. Mann have either failed to take into account or taken extraordinary measures to keep out of the peer-reviewed scientific literature.

By practicing extortion against periodicals' editors and those setting up the programs of scientific meetings, and (most perniciously of all) co-opting the peer review mechanism to foreclose the publication of their debunkers' work and THEN screeching that "because it's not in the peer-reviewed literature!" the elements of factual reality which the AGW high priesthood cannot argue against should not be taken into consideration.

I confess that when this longstanding suspicion was confirmed in the email harvest contained in that Climategate FOIA.zip archive, I did sincerely itch to get my thumbs upon the throats of Dr. Mann and his buddies, though something more lingering - involving boiling oil - seemed even more appropriate.

But I'm Sicilian. There's a natural preference for getting up close and personal. We also like to check at the dockside from time to time to see that the bubbles have stopped coming up.

Those of us who have spent our professional lives relying upon the peer reviewed scientific literature know full well how truly evil and how thoroughly destructive such conduct a that of Dr. Mann will always be. It is not much of an exaggeration to state that an entire generation of bright and promising young students in geophysics, meteorology, atmospheric physics, oceanography, and allied fields have been led by Dr. Mann into a blind alley and effectively clubbed to death.

It will take DECADES for the disciplines perverted and blighted by the AGW fraudsters to recover from this molestation.

Were theft of value by fraud not sufficient reason for Dr. Mann to be the subject of public scorn and the attentions of law enforcement officers, his perversion of peer review would be sufficient reason to declare him legally dead and shut him out of civil society while his cadaver still continues to ambulate.
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Caesonia August 30th, 2010 | 11:29pm

Rich. Get a grip. I lived in the UK for some years and they reminded me it was their spelling first. I laughed. Get over it.

a few grammatical errors doesn't change the rational of the message.

what are you on about saying Liberal all the time anyways? Why are you so angry? What, ebcause they are Citizens with the right to vote? Because they are often succesful capitalists and are willing to share some of their success?

Well, I am here to tell you that I was educated both public and private, not in parochial school, and both were very good. The best class I took was in 7th grade in a public school called government.

That year we studied the history of the US through the Constitution, and all of it's amendments; how each article came about. Amazing stuff really. You should try it some time.

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Jeez, it's easy to get a "Liberal" to go cross-eyed and gibber, isn't it? Something as simple as a website will do it to 'em....

Another of the "Liberal" poseurs on this page fulminates about Mr. Cuccinelli "...wasting our money and our time on a non-existent crime. Meanwhile, other crimes are being committed that are not being investigated so that Cuccinelli can become a darling of the know-nothing right."

If Dr. Mann's actions while on the faculty of UVa (during which time he came up with the "Hockey Stick" propaganda he'd first published in 1998) do not give probable cause to suspect crime, shall we speculate on why Dr. Mann has not only evaded lawful FOIA demands but also inquiries from government agencies requesting full disclosure of his research materials?

In honest scientific research - not that there's been much of honesty in the machinations of the global warming cabal - the standard response to requests for one's data and calculations and computer code is always "Here y'go."

Especially in the Internet age, when everything is just binary digits on electronic media. You don't even have to walk over to the printer or the photocopier. Just aggregate the stuff in a virtual folder, compress it with PicoZIP or WinRAR or whatever the Macintosh types use, and either attach it to an email or burn it onto a CD-ROM, and it's out the door.

But Dr. Mann and his fellow C.R.U. correspondents didn't want to do that - or anything like that - did they? Jeez, I wonder why.

Something of a concern (on the part of the Americans complicit in the AGW fraud) about limitations on government action under the Fifth Amendment, perhaps.

Ah, but that only refers to refusal to make statements which might tend to incriminate. Concealment or destruction of existing evidence, by contrast, is itself a felony offense. Surely, Dr. Mann has no reason to fear criminal conviction solely on the basis of his research material and associated documents, does he?

Or does he?

Might as well whine about Mr. Cuccinelli pursuing a "cold case" embezzlement perpetrated twelve years ago and only brought to the attention of Virginia law enforcement officers in November, 2009.

Statute of limitations only then began to run, y'see, and it's the duty of law enforcement personnel to get cracking on such cases, no?
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So "cookieJar" is sitting there all alone in his mother's basement laughing senselessly into the silence, and this is not supposed to be something of a disquieting vision? Sheesh.

Hasn't checked out "my" website listings lately, either, has he?

Let's see him chuckle about the cherry-picking proclivities of the AGW cabal which began to be exposed even before Climategate had pantsed them so thoroughly. From an online commentary in September 2009:

"Since 1995 Kieth Briffa has been publishing graphs about temperature of the last thousand years. Like Michael Mann’s famous (and discredited) Hockey Stick graph, Briffa’s graphs were based on tree rings and appeared to show dramatic evidence that the current climate was extraordinarily warm compared to previous years. They were used in the infamous spaghetti plots, and the IPCC 3rd Assessment Report, and recycled in other publications giving the impression they had been replicated. His work has even made it into school resources. ...

"Suspiciously, Briffa refused repeated requests to provide the Yamal data that his analysis was based on (something about the data belonging to the Russians). As Steve McIntyre points out, this kind of data should be archived and freely available after any peer reviewed paper is published.

"Last year [2008] Briffa published a paper in a journal (Philosophical Transactions of Biology, the Royal Society) that did maintain basic standards (after being prodded) and a few days ago McIntyre noticed the data was finally up. This data had been used in papers going back as far as 2000. ...

"Hiding data in science is equivalent to a company issuing it’s annual report and telling the auditors that the receipts are commercial in confidence and they would just have to trust them. No court of law would accept that, yet at the 'top' levels of science, papers have been allowed to sit as show-pieces for years without any chance that anyone could seriously verify their findings. In science, getting the stamp of Peer Review has become like a free pass to 'credibility'."

That would be kinda like me taking dermal biopsies everywhere on the carcass of "cookieJar" EXCEPT for those areas clinically suspicious for metastatic change and then slapping him heartily on the shoulder to tell him that he's entirely free of skin cancer.

Just let me make sure that "cookieJar" doesn't have the phone number of an ATLA guy on his speed-dial, okay?

Had a key clinical study - cited repeatedly by subsequent articles in the peer-reviewed medical literature - been found to have developed its conclusions on corrupted (cherry-picked) data the way the warmists' works have been revealed to be, the editorial staffs of the journals so afflicted would be compelled by their professional standards to utter retractions and corrections.

This has been done before. It is not uncommonly discovered that research (particularly that which had been conducted to a pharmaceuticals or devices manufacturer's promotional objectives) is reported in the literature in ways that do not honestly or completely articulate matters of fact pertinent to safety and efficacy of the therapeutic product or technique being evaluated, so there have got to be corrections when the pharma industry suits get caught telling half-truths.

One of the things I really like about the Web is the way in which so many of these journal publishers have tracked the citations of the articles they utter, with hotlinks to the citing items' own Web pages. The journals have a real incentive to track citations in order to gather statistical information regarding their publications' aggregate "impact factor," anyway, and this kind of practice enables them to demonstrate which subjects and authors show their ability to "grab eyeballs" in the various clinical disciplines.

But no such responsible conduct has been the rule in the various publications dominated by the "climatologists" peddling the AGW orthodoxy, and the scientific literature in these much-abused and politically perverted fields has yet to catch up to what prevails in the pages of JAMA, the New England Journal of Medicine, or The Lancet.

No surprise, actually. Not with people like Dr. Hansen, Prof. Jones, Dr. Mann, and the rest of the C.R.U. correspondents stinkin' up the joint for the past couple or three decades.
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cookieJar August 31st, 2010 | 2:23am

Rick, mom told me to ask you what you think of the New Yorker's article on the billionaire Koch brother's funding of "grassroots" organizations that question the veracity of AGW claims. They seem like nice guys, giving all of that money like they do to folks like the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation. Some not so nice folks seem to suggest that the Koch brother's vast holdings of companies that pollute like crazy may be behind their generosity, but it's just mean to say things like that. BTW, mom thinks cranky old dudes are kind of cute. No accounting for taste they say.

Wow, everyone who mispells in these comment sections is foreign! I knew there had to be a logical explanashion. Thanks for enlightining me Rick.

cookieJar August 30th, 2010 | 11:22pm

Thanks for all of that Rick, but as someone who did not recieve the wonderful gifts that a Catholic education might have provided me, that is far more lucidity than I've bin trained to process in a single sitting.

I did however, with much effort on my part, read your earlier post wherein it was postulated that they're were two and only two possible and certainly mutually exclusive explanashions for mispelling on teh part of our correspondant Mr. Smith. Those being either Britishness or ignorance.

Since you have in your masterful manner proven his ignorance, (to wit your comment that he "can’t voice a logical argument to save his pitiful little life") it seems obvious then by your own profoundly logical logic, he must not be British.

Please don't backtrack on me now that you have so forcefull swayed me and so many others to your well voiced opinion! Faith is so hard for me to come by and now that I have it, I would be like a lost sheep if you were to let me down so rudely.

Yes September 5th, 2010 | 7:56am

I hope Rich is on the Koch brothers' payroll. It would be so embarrassing for everyone if he were spouting the disinformation that they put out for free.

genealogymaster August 24th, 2010 | 5:30pm

What makes me wonder is why they are afraid of the investigation? If he has nothing to hide then let it go on. None of the inquiries has done anything to settle things. We know they do not know if emails were deleted and the science was never studied. And there has been no significant warming in the last 15 years straight from the CRU so what gives lets have a real investigation and clear the air.

Bud August 24th, 2010 | 12:41pm

Albeboy, you beat me to it! I was going to post a comment laughing hysterically about the turnout.

osama August 25th, 2010 | 10:53am

first paragraph geniuses:
Two separate sources of temperature data Ã¢â?¬â?? the National Climatic Data Center and NASA Ã¢â?¬â?? report that, through April, 2010 is the warmest year ever recorded.
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so after 4 months of 2010 temperature data they have concluded ...
great study, i thought a full year has 12 months of data.
i love global warming people - they are similar to the Bush administration.

we can all take statistics and make them tell what we want them too.
didn't anyone here go to school?

JJ Malloy August 26th, 2010 | 1:18pm

an*

very old timer August 26th, 2010 | 12:45pm

No.. it is more like a bank loaned money to a homeowner to remodel his house and the bank sees his name in the paper accused of gambling. The bank wants to see his tax return as is AGREED TO IN THE ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS.

This guy has been accused of LYING about the hockey stick. He arrived at the hocky stick conclusion with taxpayer money. The AG wants to make sure he didn't commit fraud.

He is entitled to audit ANYONE who uses taxpayer money for ANYTHING under exisiting law.

Whether it is a political witch hunt is for the voters not the courts.

and they are not sayinghtey disagree with the findings.. they are saying that enough people belive that the findings are contrived which woud make use of the money FRAUDULENT.

If UVA wants money then be transparent. If they don't then they can hide all they want.

What is UVAs defense going to be if it turns out that this guy did manipulate data?

If there is no manipulation then why hide behind a curtain. Show the voters what a bad guy the AG is and then demand protection from the legislators to prevent it in the future.

Even if UVA prevails there will always be doubt and probably legislation to compell cooperation in the future.

It all makes me think that this guy is hiding something.

If you asked me to prove my hockey stick was real I would just pull it out and prove it.

And it does not mean that I question global warming, I question researchers who expect taxpayer money without accountability.

He also has the right to request documents from the people that built a bridge etc to make sure they spent their monies properly.

Let the truth be told and the chips fall where they may.

JJ Malloy August 26th, 2010 | 1:11pm

If Palin becoming President means freedom is alive, than I shudder for this country.
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because obama has worked out so well ”Š oh virgin ia is a very funny place

I am not an Obama supporter-just someone who sees Palin for what she is. Anyone, conservative, liberal, or otherwise, who is capable of critical thought knows she isn't anything other than a uneducated, populist, celebrity turned demogague. The fact that anyone shows up to her speeches, let alone big crowds, saddens me.

osama August 27th, 2010 | 11:25am

the statistics and the data are being manipulated, the scientists are lying to continue gaining funding and grants so they can do drugs and grow long hair and look like professors at universities who don't do jack but philosophize on how smart they all are. greenhouse gas emissions are going down and the global temperature of the earth continues to drop. we are more likely to have another ice age on earth before the planet burns. get over it global warming people, once again you people will follow anyone!
global warming is a plot by the taliban ... don't believe in global warming!

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And this "Yes" specimen is still focused on me (personally) and not on the issues under discussion, isn't he?

How charmingly "Liberal." Whatever he got at that "second-best university in the world," it wasn't a passing grade in Logic 101, was it?

You want to look up "argumentum ad hominem," schmucklet? While you're at it, check on "appeal to authority," which is the kind of thing we get when dealing with people who claim to have a degree from "the second-best university in the world" as if the cachet of the institution legitimately marks the matriculant therein as somehow an irrefutable disputant whose arguments require no support whatsoever.
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Michael Eastburn August 28th, 2010 | 12:39pm

I wonder if the Lefties would be this outraged about free speech, if the university wanted to investigate the findings of a skeptical scientist? I kinda doubt it. It's a red herring, though; no one is trying to silence Dr. Hockeystick. If he's receiving taxpayer money for his "research", then we have the right to investigate whether that research is fraudulent or not.

Yes August 28th, 2010 | 12:57pm

Ummm, Mike, a) the issue isn't so much free speech as the ability to conduct academic research without annoying political meddling and b) people in the U.Va. Environmental Science department are on record as saying that they haven't liked it when politics has interfered with the careers of both Mann and Michaels, who are obviously on different sides of the issue.

And the only thing that people such as Mr. Eastburn have demonstrated is that they don't understand how real academic research is played out. Scientists receive grants, mainly from government entities. These grants are administered by those agencies to ensure that there is no obvious fraud. Scientists then publish their results. If the work is good, then they are accepted. If not, they are then disproven by other researchers and that scientist is less likely to get subsequent funding and promotion. That's how the system works 99% of the time. Cucc is interjecting himself into the process, even though there is no evidence of fraud, to pander to his know-nothing political base.

Michael Eastburn August 28th, 2010 | 2:17pm

Yes, if only your utopian vision of academic freedom unfettered by money and politics were true. Unfortunately, Dr. H'stick has invited this controversy by bringing both into the equation. I don't even know where to begin dissecting your statist fantasy, but I'll give it a try:

1) You claim that grants are administered by vigilant "government entities" who are protecting us lowly plebes from fraud. Where do you suppose these agencies get the money? C'mon...it's on the tip of your tongue...TAXES! Or, in Hockeystick's case, stimulus money (future taxes). Given that the stimulus program is currently paying over $10,000 per roadside advertising sign, do you REALLY think the government is asking any tough questions about the half million they've sunk into Hockeypuck's science, especially since it comports with their own preset agenda? Are you really that naive?

2) Your "free market" theory of research publishing is broken. There is an abundance of credible literature out there questioning (if not outright debunking) the Hockey Stick, so why did Hockeybox continue to enjoy continued funding and acceptance? We need only look to the Climategate emails for the answer. These emails reveal not an unbiased scientific community freely sharing information, but rather a small cabal of biased scientists who are doing everything in their power to manipulate data, stonewall FOI requests, marginalize those that disagree with them, and above all keep those grant dollars flowing (over 19 million of them in Phil Jones' case).

3) Gov. Cuccinelli's involvement is hardly what I'd call "pandering", given the abundant evidence of fraud. Politicization of climate science began long ago with elitist rent-seekers like Al Gore and Maurice Strong looking to cash in through the UN IPCC, which is not a scientific body. The IPCC (again, working with a pre-conceived agenda in mind), partnered with Hockeystick and his cronies at East Anglia to cook the books so that wealthy nations like the U.S. could be extorted out of money and influence. Remember, Dr. Hockeyshot willingly inserted himself into that process. If you want an example of politicization, Google "Alan Carlin" sometime and see what happens to scientists who don't toe the party line.

I don't live in Virginia, but if my Governor failed to investigate further into cases like this, I'd conclude he was failing to uphold our state's Constitution.

Will Smith August 29th, 2010 | 8:07pm

"Question: What are the chances an infinitesimal (.04%) trace gas (CO2), essential to photosynthesis and therefore life on this planet, is responsible for runaway Global Warming?"

Put like that, what are the chances that an "infinitesimal (.04%) trace gas" would be responsible for all the life on any given planet!

Gascan August 29th, 2010 | 11:18pm

I am sure that Dr. Feynman would not wish you: rich mattress, to try to use his words.

Yes August 29th, 2010 | 4:06pm

Are there many people in the crackpot community who have this Manichean worldview that categorizes everyone as either a libertarian or a fascist?

Oh, and Wilson vetoed the Volstead Act, which implemented the 18th amendment. It passed over his veto. Does his fellow fascist traveler FDR get credit for the 21st amendment?

I'd be more concerned about Staunton-born Wilson's obvious racism rather than his supposed fascism.

--
Will Smith has obviously never been involved in (much less been deposed in relation to) either a civil or criminal legal proceeding.

That Mr. Cuccinelli is "...asking for all of Mann’s emails, as well as all of the correspondence UVa can gather which in any way involves several dozen other people, almost all of whom are not Virginia employees and never received grant money from the Commonwealth" would only surprise someone utterly innocent of any such experience.

When a lawyer - ANY lawyer - goes hunting in the discovery phase, he spreads his net wide. Doing anything less is (literally) malpractice, deviation from prevailing standards of due diligence.

That "Only a small percentage of these emails would have anything to do with Commonwealth of Virginia grants" could not be determined until they'd been screened. And Mr. Cuccinelli can't fulfill his duty (both professional and as an officer of government) to make such a determination until he's gotten them.

Moreover, inasmuch as Mr. Cuccinelli is both an attorney (leading a team of attorneys) but also a serving officer of Virginia state government, he is under not one but several sets of obligations with regard to non-disclosure of personal information on ANYBODY whose records he examines. It's not quite the level of confidentiality conferred by the confessional, but pretty much the same as the doctor/patient relationship.

And is Will Smith equally ignorant of the nature of email communications? Some decades ago, when I came to use this vehicle for the first time - in a wholly professional context, not as my grandchildren have grown up employing email - I was advised that anything I sent or received was (or could be) archived upon server computers for retrieval by others.

Moreover, anything sent or received on an account provided for professional purposes WOULD be subject to review by the owners of the server, at any time.

Not to mention the fact that email messages are easy to forward all to hellangone over the place.

So if it goes out on one's professional email account, it's like going out on one's professional letterhead. It had better be composed with one's professional reputation in mind.

So let's say that Dr. Mann and his accessories at UVa had been incontinent in their email communications (as we've seen conniving business people become snerky and self-incriminating in what they had THOUGHT were their own "private" email messages - har, har!). Is this not something in which Mr. Cuccinelli should legitimately be interested?

Bear in mind that the majority of those of us embracing the non-aggression principle (and therefore qualified to call ourselves libertarians) see a real and necessary role for government in civil society, albeit sharply constrained and skeptically scrutinized at all times.

Besides, the notion of a Republican Party malefactor relentlessly pursuing a fascist fraudster like Michael Mann has got to appeal to the honest citizen's sense of humor, no?
--

Yes August 29th, 2010 | 2:55pm

Remember, the terms fascist, progressive, socialist, and Ã¢â?¬Å?Liberal” are all synonymous.
***
Only in Rich's warped mind. Of course, the distinctions between the economic philosophies of fascism and socialism are lost on him.

The notion that Wilson introduced fascism to this country is, umm, original. Although by his "reasoning," Lincoln was the ultimate fascist, given his suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and interference in the state government of Maryland.

Actually, another reason for the small showing at the protest may have been that a not-insignificant number of those who cared (such as myself) went to the actual hearing instead. Also, at least for me, I didn't hear about the "protest" until after the fact.

--
Ooh, Gascan has just booted up his computer's OuiJa board interface and is claiming to have communicated with the shade of Dr. Feynman.

You got the USB version, or the one that connects by way of Firewire?

Yes August 28th, 2010 | 7:55pm

Rich Matarese birther website is amusing. The whole "Obama is not a natural-born citizen" thing is hilarious, given that the US Supreme Court has made it clear that all persons born in the US whose parents are not employ in foreign governments, such as diplomats, are natural-born citizens.

Michael Eastburn August 28th, 2010 | 8:02pm

meanwhile, you're the perfect poster child for the Libtards...pontificating about people "getting their facts straight", all the while blissfully unaware of how to spell "paid".

rotflmao...CLASSIC!!!

gascan August 29th, 2010 | 12:02pm

When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross

Sinclair Lewis

Will Smith August 29th, 2010 | 9:07am

"Oh, good. We’ve got an anonymous Ã¢â?¬Å?Liberal” with typical attack-marmoset manners demanding that I provide him access to personal information by which he can work injury upon me."

Does this mean that "Richard Matarese" isn't the poster's real name, or does it not? Does this mean that the real Richard Matarese has been publishing refereed articles under a different name or does it not?

Will Smith August 30th, 2010 | 6:32am

I find it very comforting that the arctic is getting much cooler these days. Thanks, Blizzard! Could you please attach the Rhode Island sized chunk of ice back to Greenland and regrow a few much-shrunken glaciers?

If we go by the commonly accepted atmospheric makeup, greenhouse gases constitute 1 - 2% of the atmosphere. Of that 1 - 2%, 3.62% is CO2. 95% is water vapor and 1.38% other trace gases. Of the CO2, the human contribution of carbon is 3.4%.

Remember, CO2 is a naturally occurring gas. Does any reasonable being support spending 100’s of billions of dollars and imposing dramatic, world wide job and industry crushing regulations on schemes that will have the overall potential of a net atmospheric reduction of 4 ten-thousandth of 1% ?

And then there's the understanding that as the AGW hypothesis presently stands, even total worldwide de-industrialization (reducing humanity's "carbon footprint" to zero) could not significantly delay the onset of "climate change" cataclysm.

It's in the computer models of Dr. Mann and his fellow travelers.

If we do everything you fascists demand, then, those of us who don't starve to death or succumb to exposure will still (according to your own "Cargo Cult Science") experience the same outcomes about which you and your ilk have been shrieking.

So there's yet another "sort of opponent" resisting the alarmists' campaign. Folks who assume that people like Dr. Mann are honest, and who realize that there is not one darned thing that human beings can do to prevent "climate change," meaning that the costs associated with all this "greening" business are absolutely without value or effect and therefore not to be sustained.
--

Will Smith August 30th, 2010 | 7:01pm

I like the notion of somebody who argues with phrases such as "If we do everything you fascists demand" chastizing a humourist like me for not voicing a "logical argument."

--
Mr. McCain advises "if you want ice, head south," apparently referring to recent massive increases in sea ice (more than sufficient to compensate for the largely wind-induced north polar summer melt observed this year) around the land mass of Antarctica.

As I had observed earlier today, the lying tendencies of the "Liberal" (lies which, apparently, they believe to be capable of gulling even people objectively far greater in native intelligence and certainly more skilled in logical analysis than they) find expression in a practice known as "suppressio veri, suggestio falsi" (or even "expressio falsi").

For the literacy-impaired - like "Will Smith" - that's Latin for the suppression of that which is truthful (and complete) in order to suggest (or explicitly express) that which is known to be false.
--

--
The "Will Smith" specimen is now claiming to be "a humourist" (meaning that either he's an American who can't spell, or he's demonstrating habits of orthography commonplace in the polities of the British Empire following the American states' secession therefrom.

--
"Will Smith" (bent on proving the old New Yorker cartoon caption to the effect that "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog") barks noisily about inferring that the use of British orthography rather than American spelling militates against his being an American.

Most Web browsers in use today employ a spell-checking capability that highlights words which deviate from the standard dictionary compiled and incorporated by the software's manufacturer.

So let the interested reader type "humourist" into this Comments box and note the wriggly little red underline which instantly appears as soon as one hits the spacebar after typing that final "t".

The individual operating in a "Brit-English" polity will tend reliably to be working with a "Brit-English" spell-checking feature, and "humorist" is the form that will be marked as incorrect for such a computer user.

Note that "Brit-English" also prevails in Canada, eh.

And of course "Will Smith" is a fascist. Or "Liberal," or progressive, or whatever false flag these figli di putani are flying this week.

--
Not everyone who misspells, but who misspell in specific ways, certainly. Presumptive indicator, kinda like everybody whose blood fails to clot under normal conditions within a certain amount of time (5 to 15 minutes in vitro) can be said to have some kind of pathological or iatrogenic coagulopathy.

A persistent failure to abide by common orthographic and grammatical conventions is more indicative of those failures of higher-order cerebral function induced by prolonged exposure to ex-Education majors in extortion-funded, politically-curriculum'd, compulsorily attended government indoctrination facilities.

Say what you like about the Roman Catholic Church in America (up to and including all those altar boy jokes), but the parochial schools they were running back in the '50s and '60s had to turn out people who could read and write and think lucidly.

Parents who had to VOLUNTARILY pay for their kids' education (in addition to suffering savage property taxes to fund the NEA educrats' depredations) insisted on quality for their money. The parochial schools had to deliver or die.

Pace George Carlin, that critical thinking ability was probably why most of us wound up losing the faith. Religious belief (such as one finds among the warmists today) doesn't survive rational consideration.

Yet another reason to hold critters like "Will Smith" and "Yes" in blistering contempt.
--

--
And "cookieJar" has a point in there...somewhere? Not so it would appear.

Interestingly, Judge Peatross' decision on 30 August rejected the University's argument to the effect that the State of Virginia did not have a right to serve a civil investigative demand (CID) on UVa in matters pertinent to financial fraud. The Judge provided specifications to make further inquiries on the part of the state's Attorney General technically acceptable, and my curiosity now focuses on whether Mr. Cuccinelli's subordinates will re-issue the CID (per Judge Peatross' stipulations) before or after the Labor Day week-end.

I'm informed that before the CID was formally uttered in April, Mr. Cuccinelli offered the UVa legal team an opportunity to undertake an informal showing without the involvement of such publicity as a CID would engender. Had there been discovery of potentially actionable information, the University would be in a position to deal with matters in such a way as to minimize the institution's legal liabilities.

But the UVa administrators either wouldn't accept such an option, or their attorneys advised against it, and now the engines in Richmond have been engaged with every sort of political incentive to make this case spectacular grist for the Republican mill.

The Republicans have always been thoroughly hateful to those of us disposed to the defense of individual rights, but what's happening to Dr. Mann and the University of Virginia right now is - for me - kind of like watching a bunch of carjackers who've just stolen one's vehicle driving it off a cliff while trapped inside.

Sure, there's a little of the bittersweet about the whole thing, but when one gets to my age, there's a heightened consciousness of the satisfaction to be gotten from those rare moments in which you get to watch those who really DESERVE to crash and burn get turned into flaming pulp.
--

--
Apparently Caesonia didn't study enough about the U.S. Constitution to understand that "the ruling that just happened on this case" (Judge Peatross' decision in Albermarle County) has far more to do with the Kabuki theater rituals of legal proceduralism than the charter of central government foisted upon these United States by Alexander Hamilton and his back-stabbing buddies.

Did they tell you in government school, Caesonia, that the state of Rhode Island didn't even send a delegation to Hamilton's sealed and secret conclave in Philadelphia, and that the Rhode Islanders resisted to the last possible moment (and then only with the understanding that the Bill of Rights would be incorporated to set the citizenry's hands firmly around the throat of that central government for which Hamilton lusted) their ratification of that utterly unlawful abrogation of the Articles of Confederation?

Doubtless, you were NOT told that the response of Patrick Henry (of Virginia) to the whole Hamiltonian idea to "revise" the Articles of Confederation was: "I smell a rat!"

Much reference to the collected Federalist Papers, no doubt. And no attention paid to the anti-Federalists' writings on the matter.

Not your fault. I didn't get into the real background material myself until I got into college, and then only because I was very much the autodidact. The instructor in the one Political Science course taken in fulfillment of the "blart-and-bonkus" requirements for an undergraduate degree in Biology found my skepticism anent matters of political philosophy much to his "Liberal" disquiet.

The "Liberal" - while much enamored of the ability to send Officer Friendly to strong-arm the recalcitrant and the "reactionary" - squirms and blusters and goes all red in the face when his nose is rubbed in the fact that he's really a vicious tyrant determined to use government thugs to club, incarcerate, maim and kill those who resist his golden vision of our collective good.

So what is there about the modern American "Liberal" that does NOT make you - personally - "so angry"?

Some inadequacy of moral discrimination on your part?
--

cookieJar August 31st, 2010 | 12:51am

My point is nothing more that to get a good chuckle from your blow-hard postings. That ridiculous website you link to just wasn't quite enough. Thanks for obliging.

Caesonia August 31st, 2010 | 4:17pm

Rich - On the contrary, a great deal regarding the Federalist papers was covered, just without the need for subjective editorial you seem to feel necessary but does nothing to give you credibility in your irrational attitude. Nor did my private educators in any way feel the government educators were in error, some years later when the material was covered. Such an education obtained me entrance in some very elite institutions - no dobt the kind you love to hate, but Regency just wasn't up to my standards in education.

The complaint about procedural law is specious at best. All procedural law must still pass the test of Constitutionality in it's use, and the application can still be a process of common law.

Please review the 4th Amendment and it's stance on search and seizure. The process of discovery is little more than a mutual search and seizure agreement. It is hardly a carte blanche ticket to grab anything and everything to make a case when you don't have one. In fact, the 4th Amendment- based on common law-, was a direct result of GIII doing exactly what the AG is attempting to do now. Make no mistake, the judge ruled on this absolutely in the spirit and intent of the 4th Amendment, no matter how inconvenient you might find it.

But then, I find it usually folks on the -right- side of matters who cry the most about individual liberty, until they want to violate soemone else's liberty.

On the Federal thing.....

The definition as to whether United States meant These States United, or these United States was determined by a war that started...oh...about 1860 or so. The These United States ie Federal folks were led by that GOP/ Republican candidate known as Abraham Lincoln. Another one of those inconvenient facts, I know. Blame the government and private schools for that bit of truth.

Yet, it's hardly a coincidence that over the last 150 years, that it's those darn Constitutionalists of the GOP who have tried to use State/Federal power to undermine then rights in the individual citizen. McCarthy, Nixon, Bush/Cheney with warrantless wiretapping, right on up to our wonderful AG.

As a Libertarian I wholeheartedly concur with the judge's entire ruling, and deeply resent such a waste of my tax dollars. Instead the AG should start investigating Northrup-Grumann and it's deplorable service to the tax payer at the DMV. I doubt he will though, because he isn't interested in saving us tax dollars, he is only interested in making a show.

Joe Stack September 1st, 2010 | 5:21pm

What's missing in most of the commentators above [until the most recent comment by Caesonia] is the fact that of ALL the problems to focus on the Attorney General in my state is focusing on investigating this professor. Are you kidding me? We should be OUTRAGED that this misuse of public funds. He is misappropriating MY tax dollars to get his 15 minutes of fame and then move on. What's even sadder is that some fellow conservatives in my state and elsewhere support this kind of insanity!
The AG should be helping consumers fight back against corporate unfair business practices and fraudulent charges. Northrup Grumman, Verizon and Bank of America are just a few that continue to scorch and burn our rights unchecked. I urge you to demand the AG spend his time more wisely. Write to him and call him. Enough already!
"In a time of universal deceit Ã¢â?¬â? telling the truth is a revolutionary act." George Orwell

Old Timer August 24th, 2010 | 2:52pm

So if only 5 Tea Partiers show up at a protest outside Perriolo's office can I laugh as loudly at them over the cries about being denied access?

I bet then you would be squealing about Constitutional Rights, blah blah blah.

I also bet you scream quite loudly about State invasions when anyone talks about guns....

you guys are funny ... you get your "news" from usa today.
it will be wonderful when Palin gets into office ... things will get done and there will be less natural dis-assters like the current ones. great job on the oil spill virginia ... nice legislation going on there. but very soon there will be a regime change and we will all celebrate the first female US president or the first female US vp! freedom in america is alive and well and change will come with it ... not like with this pointless admin. boy it is hot outside, isn't it? must be global warming ... ha, too funny. the oil spill must have been because of global warming ... no wonder there are so many losers in america.

Is it a little strange that the same people that think that Wall Street needs to be regulated, that mortgage bankers and oil companies and mining companies etc need to be regulated think that academic researchers who need to insure their income stream are so trustworty that they will police themselves.

Regulate wall street and the banks. regulate researchers too. Either way it is taxpayer money at risk.

The AG may be aggresive but he does have the right, witch hunt or not. There is certainly enough controversy about this guys research to justify an inquiry.

edward scissorhands August 24th, 2010 | 6:03pm

The IRS can do audits without a "reason". Why not the AG when state tax money involved?

A legislator made a freedom of info request and was LIED to.

That LIE is "probable cause".

Give up the documents.

If academics want total "freedom" then do it with private money.

Everybody knows that grant money is given out to people who seek to prove global warming is bad not naysayers....

The hockey stick has been proven false.

Surrender the documents and let the AG have a huge failure on his record... unless of course you have something to hide....

rabidog August 24th, 2010 | 6:27pm

I'm demanding Mann's long form birth certificate too. It's my right as a citizen to see that isn't it!

anonymous August 24th, 2010 | 7:17pm

the people that believe global warming is a myth are the same ones that believed that Saddam was behind 9/11 I mean was stockpiling WMDs I mean had connections to Al-Queada I mean Obama was born in Kenya!!

Truth and reason don't matter to these people. Descarte and Jefferson are spinning in their graves.

and another thing... August 24th, 2010 | 7:19pm

even Coochie's supporters can do little more than compare his "investigation" to an IRS audit. Thank you for making our points for us.

And the USA today article is reporting on NASA's findings. I guess Coochie is to be trusted more than NASA in regards to what's happening planetwide?

Fred August 24th, 2010 | 8:23pm

When pressed at the trial to specifically identify the nature of Mann's alleged misconduct, Cuccinelli's deputy had nothing.

"We're looking," he said. "You can't have a finding until you look."

Ummm, isn't this the definition of a "witch hunt"? And I love how (obviously principled) conservatives are cheering on government overreach when their guy happens to be in power (the "hey, if they have nothing to hide, they should just roll over and give the AG whatever he wants" argument).

Cuccinelli's guy argued in court that, without their action, "you are essentially licensing university researchers to engage in fraud". Yeah, before FATA and stringent oversight by our AG, scientists at Virginia universities had a green light to make up data and misrepresent their findings. Thankfully Cuccinelli's actions will send a message to university researchers that their license to engage in fraud has been revoked! Ah, the glory days of just being able to make things up. What a joke if this is how they really see things.

I have no idea what pot of money UVA is drawing from to defend itself from the person who - by law - is supposed to represent the university. But I'm sure there are better uses for this money (financial aid, scholarships, upgrades to campus security, etc.), not to mention the wasted taxpayer dollars going into this misguided inquest. This whole situation is self-destructive and sad for Virginia.

and another thing... August 24th, 2010 | 9:52pm

sorry ed, but there are limits to what the gov't can do. Just because research is "controversial" (and the PA case was thrown out of court recently, btw) does not make it a criminal offense.

This IS an abuse of power by the AG office, however you feel about global warming. The quotes from the courtroom are telling. They've got nothing.

Fred August 24th, 2010 | 9:48pm

Political oversight and interference vs. freedom of inquiry and peer review (or self-regulation as "edward scissorhands" refers to it). The latter are always preferable when it comes to producing sound science.

If scientific researchers were really in it for the money they would be working for Wall Street, banks, oil and mining companies, etc.

meanwhile.... August 25th, 2010 | 10:38am

old timer, being "wrong" isn't fraud and it isn't a crime, even if a gov't grant was used to arrive at wrong conclusions.

Grow up, people.

JJ Malloy August 25th, 2010 | 9:08am

If Palin becoming President means freedom is alive, than I shudder for this country.

very old timer August 25th, 2010 | 8:48am

The hockey stick graph has proven to be false.

That is "wrongdoing" that his wonderful "peers" missed.

"If scientific researchers were really in it for the money they would be working for Wall Street, banks, oil and mining companies, etc"

Most couldn't SURVIVE on wall street or wal mart for that matter.

I don't think they are in it for the money but I do think they set out to prove a hypothesis and will manipulate data to insure that they remain funded. Very few people will slice their own throat.

osama August 25th, 2010 | 9:40am

If Palin becoming President means freedom is alive, than I shudder for this country.
******************
because obama has worked out so well ... oh virgin ia is a very funny place

Old Timer August 25th, 2010 | 5:55pm

very old timer,

No, this investigation is a witch hunt. They have absolutely no reason to suspect fraud in obtaining the money. If they did, they would say it. Theya re saying " I disagree with the conclusions so I have the right to go looking for fraud in the grant funding process."

Two very different things.

A bank can't demand someone hands over all their email with their home owner's association to try and prove fraud on a bank application, just because that someone paints the house a color the association finds fault with. If the house is being used as per the purpose of the loan agreement, and the person is in good financial standnig, that's where it ends.

Sorry.

Cuccinelli apparently has basis for presuming fraud in the grant process, regardless of the research results.

Old Timer August 26th, 2010 | 1:31pm

very old timer,

"This guy has been accused of LYING about the hockey stick."

People can be accused of lying about all sorts of things, but that doesn't mean they have. Mann has been accused by a few scientists of manipulating data. Data and a methodology that was already vetted by peers in the field, and results that were duplicated.

The charges of 'lying' you supposedly want to refer to already were testified on, and Mann was cleared of any scientific wrong doing.

Thus, the AG really has nothing to show, other than, - we'll know it when we see it - which a judge might well find insufficient. If the AG had the automatic right to do what he is trying to do, I think you would find things going much more smoothly.

That's a witch hunt. Sorry.

And your bank description over gambling is not appropriate, because Mann used his money to do research and posit a theory which was vetted by others in the field, and found suitable. He used the money for what he said he did, not to go on a cruise to Bermuda.

Cameron H August 28th, 2010 | 4:32am

I have noticed a few comments that state that academics are not in it for the money and if they were they would be working for mining or oil companies ect. I have multiple science and engineering qualifications and have worked in both Government and Private industry. My last position before retirement in 2008 was as a Technical Services and Engineering Manager at a major industrial site. In my various positions over the years I have had dealings with many academics from universities and my opinion is that they do not work for private companies because they are not good enough. They are never held accountable for what they say and hide behind the type of arguements that we are hearing from academics at the moment. My advise it that it is about time these people were held accountable for what they say and how they spend public money. Out them all I say. Keep up the good work Mr Cuccinelli.

meanwhile... August 28th, 2010 | 10:15am

Rich Malterese establishes conclusively that there is a "possibility" that "Dr. Mann and the administrators of the University might well have been complicit in ... fraud".

In the United States of America you need PROBABLE cause that someone perpetrated a crime to conduct such an investigation, not "possible" cause that a crime had even taken place. You can't go to a judge and say "a crime MIGHT WELL have taken place!" The Attorney General of Virginia knows this. It is he that is perpetrating a fraud on the electorate of the Commonwealth and wasting Government funds. Time will bear this out and he and his supporters will be exposed to be fools. Mark these words.

Mr. Malterese, one of the Attorney General's supporters, unwittingly provides the very rational for a dismissal of the Attorney General's case.

--
Now the "Liberal" is making noise about "...standard response for data or code that are older than 3-5 years," pretending that he knows anything about research.

Personal computing memory storage began to become cheap in the mid-90s, and when such digital archiving became trivial in terms of cost, space, and access time, those of us who have done scientific research began to indulge our natural proclivity to keep our hands upon every bit of information we'd ever used. Or, indeed, ever might conceivably use.

Why discard what we'd sweated to gather? Besides, in the sciences you literally do not know what future context might provide in the way of insight needed to make those old observations grist for the hungry "publish or perish" mill.

So the idea of a research-oriented grant-seeking organism like Michael Mann discarding observational data or earlier iterations of his beloved climate modeling computer code is ludicrous on the face of it. There's not even the old "three removes equals one house fire" excuse. Digital archives burned onto optical disk media (which are capacious and quite robust) or stored on external hard drives makes keeping such materials manageable without significant risks of loss.

If Dr. Mann cannot respond either to FOIA requests, a subpoena, or the requests of other investigators with a scientific interest in checking his data and his calculations, it's because he sloughed information from his professional records which he knew would prove hazardous to his career.

And likely to his ability to take a shower without asking somebody to unlock his door.
--

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Yet another apologist for Dr. Mann writes: "...the issue isn’t so much free speech as the ability to conduct academic research without annoying political meddling...."

Hm. And if that academic is conducting his research on funds extorted from the private citizenry by politicians meddling in matters entirely beyond their lawful authority?

Politics - the affairs of civil government - are matters pertinent to an agency in American society distinct from all others by virtue of its officers' functional monopoly of the police power. The delegated authority to exercise (on behalf of the private citizens) their individual right to retaliatory deadly force against foreign and domestic aggressors.

Everything government officials do is predicated upon their ability to break things and kill people. Every tax, every regulation, every zoning ordinance. The modern "Liberal" (who is anything BUT a genuine liberal) evades this facet of reality, but it's the fundamental basis of all government.

Breaking things and killing people.

So Dr. Mann - as the recipient of funds expended under the happy fiction that they were taken from the population of Virginia and the others of our United States to some real public benefit - is responsible to the people and their agents in government for the purposes to which he put those funds.

And if he connived to get those funds by way of intentionally stating falsehoods regarding evidence of "anthropogenic global warming" (as recent examination of his statistics certainly seems to demonstrate - and remember, he's a mathematician first and a "climatologist" only opportunistically), Dr. Mann's conduct certainly rises into the "probable" range with regard to the possibility of unlawful conduct.

Professional misconduct as well, most certainly, no matter what his fellow beneficiaries of misappropriated taxpayer funds at UVa and Penn State might like the botched and the gullible to believe.
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Yes August 28th, 2010 | 11:03am

Yeah, Pat Michaels, the person who claimed for decades at U.Va. to hold a position that he had never been officially appointed to and who is now funded by groups such as the Cato Institute.

Oh, and it's amusing to see people refer to "Climategate" "revelations" when the purloined emails only revealed the obvious - that most climate scientists enjoy making fun of global warming doubters and view them with intellectual contempt.

meanwhile... August 28th, 2010 | 6:42pm

@Michael Eastburn:
Mann isn't at UVA anymore, I don't believe. So how is it that "stimulus funds" payed for his research? Unless you are trying to shoehorn some other political argument into the legal question being discussed here, I'd say your postulations are way off base. My understanding is that his research was conducted years ago, which only points out how ridiculous AG Cucinelli's "investigation" is. Oh yeah and that's another thing. Cucinelli is NOT the Governor. Just another pesky FACT that gets in the way of your righteous opinion, I guess.

Soooooo, the people supporting this witch hunt need to get their FACTS straight before they start blowharding. I'm pleased to hear Mr. Eastburn doesn't live in Virginia, but that only decreases the value of his opinion.

It is our tax dollars that pay for Cucinelli's office. He's wasting our money and our time on a non-existent crime. Meanwhile, other crimes are being committed that are not being investigated so that Cucinelli can become a darling of the know-nothing right. Sad for Virginia, good news for those like Mr. Eastburn I suppose.

Fred August 28th, 2010 | 6:44pm

Hey Rich I checked out your website. Shouldn't you be compiling more Birther "facts"? You're a prolific spewer of half-baked conspiracy theories.

meanwhile... August 28th, 2010 | 6:46pm

@Richard Malterese....

Lotta diatribe there but not much that's relevant to the topic discussed in the courtroom last week. It's not a coincidence that AG Cucinelli has NOT asked you to testify as an expert witness. Peatross (that's the judge) would laugh you out of court.

When you and Eastburn have something relevant to say about the legal controversy that exists here in Charlottesville, you may get a response. Until then, keep blowing hard at that windmill. That appears to be what you're good at.

Only a small portion (very much the minority) of the "FOIA.zip" archive released in the Climategate revelations back in November 2009 consisted of the C.R.U. correspondents' email.

The majority of that archive was made up of the heavily doctored climate recording datasets of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit - demonstrating that one of the world's three "gold standard" surface climate records had been intentionally corrupted by the AGW priesthood - and the computer code for some of the vaunted climate models upon which charlatans like Prof. Jones and Dr. Mann have been touting their predictions of "cataclysmic" global warming due to carbon dioxide forcing attributed to the combustion of petrochemicals.

And (as those of us on the skeptical side have been reliably and painstakingly inferring for the past decade and more) that computer code was completely bogus. You could feed random numbers - Brownian "red noise" - into those models and get the same "hockey stick" trend line foisted upon the gullible public by Michael Mann and his buddies.

Those datasets and that computer code had been repeatedly requested of Prof. Jones at the C.R.U. under the United Kingdom's own Freedom of Information Act, and in the emails we have a record of Prof. Jones stating his intention to evade those FOIA demands and even destroy the datasets requested rather than put them under skeptics' eyes for examination.

And yet there are still global warming "True Believers" who want to sustain the Big Lie about Climategate. Just snarky emails, same thing anybody might write.

Yeah, sure. On a major research center's servers, among correspondents who are supposed - by the warmist Faithful themselves - to be THE world authorities on catastrophic climate change.

Yet again, the scientific disgrace of all time.
--

Fred August 28th, 2010 | 2:34pm

And if the judge blocks Cuccinelli from pursuing his witch hunt, we must assume that he is conspiring with the independent investigations that conspired to whitewash this conspiracy by a cabal of scientists who have conspired with politicians bent on world domination and/or destroying the American way of life.

Hmmm... you've found a mistake in my comment and pointed it out. Thank you for tacitly agreeing with all my other points. I've pointed out your mistakeS you pointed out my one mistake. I thank you for the correction and I appreciate that in the future you'll try harder to actually be factually correct when you post comments.

Yes August 28th, 2010 | 10:11pm

You don’t even have to walk over to the printer or the photocopier. Just aggregate the stuff in a virtual folder, compress it with PicoZIP or WinRAR or whatever the Macintosh types use, and either attach it to an email or burn it onto a CD-ROM, and it’s out the door.
***
Wait, are you suggesting that Mann doesn't use some kind of Linux or Unix-based system? Well, that would be the first troubling thing about his research that I have read.

Yes August 28th, 2010 | 10:17pm

In honest scientific research - not that there’s been much of honesty in the machinations of the global warming cabal - the standard response to requests for one’s data and calculations and computer code is always Ã¢â?¬Å?Here y’go.”
***
Now Rich is living in a fantasy world. The standard response for data or code that are older than 3-5 years, which is typically what journals require in terms of archiving for published papers, that wasn't made available as supplementary data at the time is usually, "Ummm, yeah, I guess that I could dig that up for you. Let me go through my old files and I'll get back to you."

--
"Wait, are you suggesting that Mann doesn’t use some kind of Linux or Unix-based system?"

Hm. He DOES have a beard, doesn't he?

But given the Urban Dictionary's take on the subject ("The length, bushiness, and unkemptness of the Unix beard are all directly proportional to the owner's expertise"), and Dr. Mann has only a dinky little goatee and mustache, he's probably not a very GOOD Unix type.

Doesn't the Virginia State prison system require new intakes to shave their facial hair during processing?
--

--
Ah, the use of the Obama Timeline in the "website" slot has had its intended effect, hasn't it?

Amazing how predictable "Liberals" always are, no? Consider the propensity of the dog returning to its vomitus....

But the dog is man's best friend, while the "Liberal" is the enemy of social comity and good public order as well as the individual human being's rights to life, to liberty, and to property.
--

Caesonia August 29th, 2010 | 10:07am

Rich - as I read your post I am reminded at how easily so many of the right accidently let truth slip, thus showing the lie of their agenda.

"The modern Ã¢â?¬Å?Liberal” (who is anything BUT a genuine liberal)

This is absolutely true. But that doesn't stop you from shrieking at them and calling them liberals, as if it's a bad word and what they represent, does it? Are you saying that if they were true liberals you would be any happier with them? Or are you just admitting that if you told the truth about what they were, your own agenda might actually be visible even to the ignorant you rely on?

"Oh, good. We’ve got an anonymous Ã¢â?¬Å?Liberal” with typical attack-marmoset manners demanding that I provide him access to personal information by which he can work injury upon me."

Evidently you approve of that sort of thing, because you support the AG asking for it, of a person already cleared. What makes you special?

Um, just so you remember....in America, silence does not mean consent. Not producing the requested information for what appears to be a witch hunt is hardly admission of guilt. Especially as the methodology in question has been used with other data to test it - as is normal - worked. If subsequent data represents other hypotheses, it doesn't mean fraud.

Sorry.

Will Smith August 29th, 2010 | 2:46pm

"Is Mr. Cuccinelli demanding PERSONAL and private information of Dr. Mann and of the administrators of UVa, or is his investigative demand focused appropriately upon matters exclusively pertinent to Dr. Mann’s professional (i.e., taxpayer-funded) activities related to his catastrophic AGW alarmism?"

He's asking for all of Mann's emails, as well as all of the correspondence UVa can gather which in any way involves several dozen other people, almost all of whom are not Virginia employees and never received grant money from the Commonwealth. Only a small percentage of these emails would have anything to do with Commonwealth of Virginia grants. There might be, for instance, a private communication about the mental health issues of a graduate student in Mr. Mann's department. That would be covered under the Cuccinelli request.

It's very surprising that someone who can cut and paste the usual libertarian line on government intrusiveness would argue for such a dragnet by the government, unless of course he hadn't read the actual text of the request.

--
The "Liberal" fascist of today (like this "Yes" specimen) has a proximal and powerful interest in obliterating consideration of the essential similarities between the malignancy of his own socialism and that of his predecessors.

This is why the modern "Liberal" (or progressive, as they've taken to calling themselves yet again) wants to stress the purely cosmetic "distinctions between the economic philosophies of fascism and socialism."

Kinda like putting emphasis on the "distinctions between" lymphoma and leukemia, I suppose. Important to the histopathology people and the oncologists (different prognoses, different chemotherapeutic approaches, etc.), but to the patient?

Not much. Just as with "Liberalism," socialism, fascism, and suchlike malignancies, unless you stomp it, it's going to kill you.

The good St. Woodrow didn't introduce fascism to America. He was simply the first president to rule under the premises thereof, and to impose fascism upon the whole of the nation.

What, you think prohibition wasn't a wholly fascist idea?

But I'll grant "Yes" something in the way of perception for having written that "Lincoln was the ultimate fascist."

Not exactly, of course. Lincoln was the ultimate Federalist, the perfect Whig, the prototype Republican. While I've heard the Republicans eloquently described as "Rotarian Socialists" ("Three cheers for free enterprise, and keep them tariffs, set-asides, sweetheart deals, quotas, subsidies, bailouts, and regulations a-coming!"), fascism came later, a sort of parallel political predatory filthiness.

I strongly recommend the recent work of Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo on this subject. Much of his shorter essays are freely available online by way of any search engine.
--

Will Smith August 30th, 2010 | 8:10am

So I take it Matarese believes that the Washington Post falsified the report of a large iceberg breaking off of Greenland? That the Washington Post is not a reputable source for such an item?

If as "Blizzard" argues, the arctic is cooling, then the ice would be breaking off less, not the same or more.

There are three sorts of opponents to man-caused global climate change.

1. Those who don't even believe that the planet is warming, and that the entire affair is cooked up by "evil" scientists like Prof. Mann. These people are coo-coo-for-coco-puffs.

2. Those who accept that the planet is warming, but argue that the cause is too complicated to attribute to specific man-made events at this time.

3. Those who accept that the planet is warming, but argue that the cause is too complicated to attribute to specific man-made events at this time, and that some scientists have been too alarmist about climate change.

It would be nice if so many of category one didn't post their rants and threats (such as Mr. Matarese's boasts about shivving Mr. Mann) to comment boards and we heard more from the other two categories.

Gascan August 30th, 2010 | 8:10am

So: deniers have built their own "Cargo Cult" to help sustain the unsustainable. Dr. Feynman is not able to return from the grave to scold you for using his words out of context. Your plane will land when it runs out of fuel.

Gascan August 30th, 2010 | 8:37am

The above is a reference to Dr. Feynman's words that are being used out-of-context to supposedly place him on the side of the deniers. Read his words on what he called "Cargo Cult Science".

"There are three sorts of opponents to man-caused global climate change."

I think you could even add category 4: Those who accept the strong probability of anthropogenic climate change, but disagree with the consensus political views on how to respond to it (carbon cap-and-trade, etc.).

Category 4 separates the science of climate change from the socioeconomic aspects, which IMO is a healthy thing. It gives people who don't like Al Gore and his politics an alternative to knee-jerk anti-scientism.

Gascan August 29th, 2010 | 10:39pm

@Jason McCain: Cmon....http://jasonmccainpornstar.com/

Blizzard August 29th, 2010 | 10:43pm

Greetings from down under [Australia].

You guys, or your government has more specifically, spent US$80 Billion of your tax monies on Institutes such as your Universities, NASA GISS, NOAA, HADCRUT[of Climategate fame],et al why more like Cuccinelli are not chasing the money trail is amazing.

Now let’s look at NOAA; the data for the Arctic comes from NASA GISS and guess what the temperature anomalies are calculated [modeled] not real temperature recordings and these show temperature anomalies of up to 4°C a plain nonsense. NASA only one thermometer above 65°N The Russian Institute for Economic Analysis the responsible department has issued a paper challenging the HAD CRUT findings for temperature anomalies for Russia firstly by removing 25% of The Russian Data and creating a 40% black hole. OF note Siberia is experiencing real not calculated temperatures between 5&10% below normal expectations.

70% of all land based record is now discounted with nearly all high and cooler country data not used [5000 stations reduced to 1500].

China has also had 70% of its stations dropped by HAD CRUT and Jones of CRU Climategate fame admits to a 1.8°F UHI contamination.

NASA, HAD CRUT and NOAA all have now been exposed for statistical manipulation and bias and their advocacy must be seriously discounted.

The big one though is NOAA’s own website published data shows the Arctic cooling rapidly as well as the oceans with projected significant cooling until the end of 2011.

Not only should Mann be investigated your Jim Hansen from NASA, whom now admits he is an environmental activist, should have his involvement investigated in Data manipulation of NASA Global Temp dataset. Since 2007 he has recast NASA's temp record, which until that point showed the same trend bias as HADCRUT to now showing 2010 as going to be the hottest on record. What is being hidden if you dig deeply enough is the Earth's "fever" dropped by 0.47°C wiping more than half the heat gain for The 20th Century.

We have the same issues down here with our Bureau of Meteorology and an Independent study has shown their figures as biased at best manipulated at worst. The New Zealand NIWA is being taken to court to force them to correct their data which is showing a 1.00°C +ve anomaly.

You guys need to get more active and chase your Al Gore for what his relationship is with Gorbachov, Maurice Strong and The Club of Rome. Follow the money trail I say.

--
And there's "Will Smith" putting up links to *The Washington Post* (the link to the NSIDC doesn't seem to support anything in the way of whatever contentions he's supposed to be making) and maundering about the peer-reviewed literature.

Schmucklet, my personal professional reliance upon the scientific literature has absolutely nothing to do with the perfidies of Michael Mann and his accessories both before and after the fact, but you can believe about me whatever you flippin' well please. You've made it clear that your gullibility and your adherence to blunder and bilge - in the form of the absolutely unsupported and unsupportable anthropogenic global warming fraud - is so complete that I could offer a better prognosis for the long-term survival of a patient with T3N3M1 malignant melanoma than that a creature such as you could achieve either sanity or intellectual integrity.

But that's nothing more than an interpretation of your evasions and persistent illogic throughout your festering presence in this forum. Who knows? You might be far more odious and contemptible in person.

Intrusively normative fascists tend reliably to be worse IRL.

By the bye, on that big berg calved from Greenland's Petermann glacier, Dr. Andreas Muenchow of the School of Marine Science & Policy at the University of Delaware has gone on record saying that:

"...years of data on the glacier itself show that after this month's event, the mass of ice is still, on average, discharging about the same amount of water it usually does - some 600 million cubic meters a year, or about 220,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. 'Even a big piece like this over 50 years is not that significant. It's just the normal rate,' he said.

"Muenchow warns people not to jump to conclusions. 'An event like this, this specific event, all flags go immediately up, "Oh, let's explain this by global warming." I cannot support that,' he said."

--
Tsk yet again. This "Will Smith" failure can't voice a logical argument to save his pitiful little life, and therefore posts a complete nullity, drawing his one fragmentary quotation of my work (visible intact immediately above) out of context to no effect other than the demonstration of his flaming incompetence.

Vide the product of the public "school" system.
--

Will Smith August 30th, 2010 | 2:06pm

Rich Matarese usually misses the point and then zings off into his rehearsals.

All I was pointing out was that any reasonable human being can trust the Washington Post when it says a big chunk of ice broke off from Greenland and then prints a satellite photo of a big chunk of ice breaking off from Greenland.

Unreasonable human beings challenge every single statement of someone they perceive as an "evil" liberal fraudster, even when it's an obvious fact they accept as a fact.

So here's the test--Hej Rich, the Washington Post recently reported the sun rose this morning in the East.

--
And "Will Smith" claims "that any reasonable human being can trust the Washington Post" when reporting such matters of fact as the iceberg calved from the Petermann glacier in Greenland.

Tsk. Naturally, an individual like "Will Smith" - pushing a notion that cannot stand thorough reasoned analysis of all information pertinent thereunto - strives to blank out appreciation of how his lies rely upon the technique of telling just enough of the truth and then omitting critically important information so that those he strives to deceive are led to fatally false conclusions.

The Washington Post, like the New York Times, is notorious for its "Liberal" slant on all matters. The pretense of "balance" in such partisan rags is carefully maintained, but the slant is always there. What is more telling than what they print is what they purposefully omit. In newspaper terms, what the editors "spike."

Anyone who has ever written for any of the various mainstream (old, legacy, dying, "Please give us taxpayer subsidies and crush our competition on the Internet!") media understands how the spike works.

The "satellite photo of a big chunk of ice breaking off from Greenland" might impress the botched and the gullible (like "Will Smith"), but when that calving berg is factored into total annual water discharge figures for the Petermann glacier per annum and over the past half-century (remember, we haven't had satellite observation capabilities for very long in the geophysical time sense), it is - as Dr. Muenchow had carefully stipulated - within normal limits.

This, of course, is not stressed by the editorial staff of The Washington Post.

To be fair, admitting that this gaudy big berg ain't such of a much to get excited about makes it difficult for the dying MSM to grab eyeballs and therefore sell advertising.

Now, were I a political conservative (as I am not), I might speak of The Washington Times as a more "reliable" fishwrapper than the Washington Post.

Of course, "In this world of sin and sorrow, there is always something to be thankful for. As for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican."

(Citation of source left as an exercise for the student.)
--

cookieJar August 31st, 2010 | 2:07am

Wow, thanks, it was really nice of you to indulge me again like that. Mom says hi.

--
Well, "cookieJar," tell your mother that The New Yorker is anything but a reliable source of information on the Koch brothers.

See http://tinyurl.com/23858hb for Justin Raimondo's take on "the Kochtopus" and the current kvetchings of the socialists about the brothers' efforts to support opposition to the unconstitutional and economically devastating actions of Barry Soetoro and his fellow National Socialist Party commissars.

As Mr. Raimondo states, he has longstanding first-hand experience of the Koch brothers, and puts into much better context the activities of these individuals over the past few decades.

The "Liberal" duplicity and the hapless superficiality of the MSM tends with dreadful reliability to makes this sort of context-setting impossible to secure from the periodicals they control.

Mr. Raimondo had turned his attention to an op-ed piece by Frank Rich in The New York Times, concluding his online article with the following observation (which also suits Jane Mayer's screed in The New Yorker):

"The Frank Riches of this world think money determines everything: a curiously plutocratic idea for alleged liberals to hold, but there you have it. The truth, however, is that ideas rule the world, not dollars Ã¢â?¬â?? and the 'Invisible Hands' are not the billionaires, but the ideologues and activists to whom they must inevitably turn."

Read Mr. Raimondo's essay. As opposed to Frank Rich and Jane Mayer, he has real proximal knowledge of these persons being vilified by the J-school wastoids of the inbred Manhattan gentry, and thus more than completely trumps the ineffective and worthless character assassination you've shoved into your eyeballs until the threshold of toxic overload has long since been surpassed.
--

confused August 31st, 2010 | 12:06pm

Was Justin Raimondo your writing teacher Rich? You guys have a very similar style.

Yes August 31st, 2010 | 12:37pm

Rich, the judge in the relevant case ruled that Cuccinelli failed to provide a specific allegation of fraud against Mann, let alone any evidence of fraud.

But you said that it was so clear that Mann's work was fraudulent. Oh, I know, typical fascist jurists!

Joe Stack September 1st, 2010 | 5:30pm

By the way, Rich Matarase, again does what most of the mentally unstable that have hijacked the Republican Party do. They twist and spin reality. They claim the "media" and "periodicals" are controlled by the "liberals". Where is the evidence? Do you see who owns these companies? They are owned by corporations. Not people. Corporations. Corporations that only care about sensationalism to make money. Nothing wrong with that. However, to tell something that isn't true, is typical "debate" for these people.
It's almost as if the new right wing has sent out a Memo to everyone in the country: "ATTENTION. From now on, anyone that has any civilized logical dialogue supported by many examples of evidence will be silenced. No form of dissent is allowed. That is all. Carry on." If anyone is controlling the media, it is the corporations. They control the reality you see. If you don't believe me, travel more than 4,000 miles to another country.
"In a time of universal deceit Ã¢â?¬â? telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell ...

There is little doubt that this year on this planet will be the hottest on record. Microbursts, massive snowfalls, unprecedented heat waves..... all coincidence? I guess the scientists predicting all this extreme weather just got lucky.

BB August 24th, 2010 | 11:39am

If the state has money in it they should have to right to the information. If UVA or any of the researches don't want to that to happen tell the state NO to their money. It would probably be a good idea from now on for the state add that provision when state money is provided.

meanwhile.... August 24th, 2010 | 11:46am

simple question is whether or not UVA's email server has back ups from 5 years ago. Good chance that they don't.

The AG needs to have a reason to investigate. In this case, he doesn't and he knows it.

Even if Mann were wrong, that doesn't make him guilty of fraud.

re:"If the state has money in it they should have to right to the information. "

What information? The state has plenty of money in UVA. Does that mean that the state can investigate any and all aspects of life at UVA, even if no crime has been committed?

This is America. People are not only innocent until proven guilty but if there is no evidence of a crime having been committed, the state doesn't get to upend your life in an open-ended investigation. The attorney general of Virginia should KNOW this, but he's more likely angling for a gig on FoxNews after 2013.

Albeboy August 24th, 2010 | 11:48am

5 people? Bwahahahahahaha!

osama August 25th, 2010 | 9:33am

Palin 2012
JJ Malloy ... you are old news. the sky isn't falling.

nicknameoscar August 24th, 2010 | 1:53pm

Seems like if Mr. Cuccinelli is on a publicity hunt then he has won... if a gathering of 5 people can garner all this news coverage (I am not talking about just the coverage here).

It also seems that if only 5 people showed up then the scientific community is not really all that concerned about their "academic freedoms" (or whatever they called it). Probably just a case of a few "A type" personalities being able to manipulate the media (on both sides). Oh well, there will be some lawyers who benefit (fees charged) from this at least.

nicknameoscar August 24th, 2010 | 1:55pm

Of course the sad part is that the lawyer fees (for both sides) will probably end up coming from taxpayers.

Let me guess, osama, you haven't been invited to join the National Academy of Science, yet?

osama August 25th, 2010 | 11:25am

Yes - answer me this: how does 4 months of data mandate the entire year? this conversation doesn't need to go any further than if your panel of experts don't know how many months are in one year.

osama August 25th, 2010 | 11:27am

The Natinoal Academy of Science is about as accurate and as effective as the FDA.

osama August 25th, 2010 | 11:30am

who funds the National Academy of Science?
who funds NASA?
who funds US Today?
global warming increases and decreases based on the amount of funding each year.
now go out and buy a 3D television America!

very old timer August 25th, 2010 | 2:29pm

old timer... thats what this whole investigation is trying to determine.... (getting/ fufilling the obligation as outlined etc)

whos on first?

Old Timer August 25th, 2010 | 2:17pm

Veryu Old Timer,

No, your point as that scientists couldn't survive on Wall Street, as if those on Wall Street were somehow more capable.

You are right about one thing: these scientists couldn;t compete with those on Wall Street for government funding, or on general fraid and slews of lies.

At least the scientists come up with useful infomration, even if it is wrong from time to time. What did all the derivative traders come up with beyond a bunch of ponzi schemes?

By the way, regulation means having rules in place before hand and monitoring that those rules are followed.

Are you saying Mann didn't follow the rules for getting his grants? Do you have evidence of that?

osama August 25th, 2010 | 2:44pm

that's what i want to find out

osama September 7th, 2010 | 4:19pm

global warming 'til we die!
Palin 2012

GA August 24th, 2010 | 5:19pm

Great to see people standing up against Cuccinelli, despite a poor turnout.

Rob August 25th, 2010 | 3:07am

Mann already handed over all his research data and methods (including computer programs) back in 2005 for a congressional investigation (and on a few other occasions). No wrongdoing on his part was ever detected by any of the investigations in his work.

But Cuccinelli now wants his (Mann's) email correspondence with other scientists. Not just a few, but all Mann wrote in the past 10 years.

If judge Peatross allows Coccinelli to have his way, this would open the door for any AG to subpoena email correspondence from any scientist (or any government official ?) for any reason (or lack thereof).

If privacy law and freedom of scientific expression without intimidation from government official has any legal meaning at all in this country, then judge Peatross will have no problem making a decision.

But I am very much looking forward on how hard Peatross will slap Cuccinelli back into (or out of) his chair.

Old Timer August 25th, 2010 | 11:45am

very old timer,

Most on Wall Street can't survive without massive 700 billion dollar bailouts either. Where would they be if they weren't fleecing the taxpayer, huh?

very old timer August 25th, 2010 | 12:21pm

My point exactly... they "policed" themselves and claimed that government oversight was unessasary and look where it got us...

History will only repeat itself so long as we let academics run amok with our tax dollars.

What is the difference? At the end of the day our pockets are empty, someone else is richer and society is no better off.

"old timer, being Ã¢â?¬Å?wrong” isn’t fraud and it isn’t a crime, even if a gov’t grant was used to arrive at wrong conclusions"

.... it is not about being "wrong" it is about using government funds to decieve the very people who are PAYING YOU to arrive at the truth. If he was honest with his methods etc then good for him and he will be vindicated.

If not then the taxpayers deserve the truth...

Rob August 26th, 2010 | 4:58pm

very old timer,

"This guy has been accused of LYING about the hockey stick".

If AGs would start an inquiry every time that anyone accuses a scientist of lying, then we would need to built 10x more court rooms.

"What is UVAs defense going to be if it turns out that this guy did manipulate data? "

Mann has been CLEARED of any scientific wrongdoing (let alone lying) by more than 7 independent investigations (including a congressional one) over the past 10 years, and his scientific findings have since then been confirmed by dozens of other global temperature reconstructions using more than a thousand proxie data sets, all of which is openly available already.

What is next after the current demand for personal emails ?
Demand for Mann's pants from 10 years ago ?
To check if he has notes in his pockets that "show" that he manipulated data ? Where is the end to this idiocy ?

What does it take for you (or anybody) to accept that data was NOT manipulated, that scientists are not lying and that the world is actually warming due to our own greenhouse gas emissions ?

Yes August 28th, 2010 | 11:45pm

Rich, can you provide links to your peer-reviewed journal articles? A google scholar search for "Richard Matarese" only turns up 3 medical papers from 1984. I only have a research doctorate from what was recently rated as the second-best university in the world, as well as any number of peer-reviewed articles. Mann has 80 such articles at last count. You must then have hundreds of path-breaking articles in well-respected articles. It's strange, then, that your link is to such an obviously crackpot website.

--
Since the Climategate revelations (November 2009), it is impossible to evade the strong possibility that Dr. Mann, during his time at UVa, had knowingly uttered falsehoods on applications for grant funding and therefore both sought and received taxpayer money under false pretenses.

His refusal (and the associated refusal of UVa administrators) to release information on his research and associated subjects under Freedom of Information Act petition and even subpoena (!) is indicative of duplicity and the intention to conceal evidence of unlawful conduct.

Skeptical climate scientist Pat Michaels had recently written:

"It is a fact that in the United States the taxpayer outlay for so-called global change science is now in excess of $4 billion annually. Universities reward their faculty on the amount and quality of research that they produce, which, in climate science, requires considerable taxpayer funding. If the funding stream is threatened by findings downplaying the significance of climate change, the public choice model would predict rather vociferous review. If it is enhanced, this model would predict a glowing, positive review."

These are the incentives under which Dr. Mann (and UVa) had been working during his time in Charlottesville. We have in that paragraph a perfect understanding of why Dr. Mann and the administrators of the University might well have been complicit in what we might as well call the anthropogenic global warming fraud.

--
Nah. Fascism came to America in the person of a former president of Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson. One of his enforcers was a "progressive" named A. Mitchell Palmer, and one of his party apparatchiki was fellow fascist Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy.

FDR's own later implementation of "liberal fascism" (term courtesy of socialist H.G. Wells) came after he'd replaced the hapless Republican Herbert Hoover, whose fellow Republicans in the Congress had precipitated yet another recession by way of their usual unsound and destructive legislative interferences in the nation's economy, most spectacular of which was the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.

You want to see how fascism came to America? Study FDR's New Deal (and especially the NRA "Blue Eagle," which is a symbol for any fascist to fibrillate over), or look even further back to the "Bellamy salute" proposed and imposed by "Christian Socialist" Francis Bellamy to accompany the thoroughly fascist and utterly anti-American Pledge of Allegiance.

Remember, the terms fascist, progressive, socialist, and "Liberal" are all synonymous. Note that all of them involve command of the economy by intrusive central government, depriving the private citizenry of the effective ability to dispose of their lives, their liberties, and their property as they see fit.

Inferring that the defenders of climate fraud Michael Mann are "Liberals" (or the precise equivalent) can be done reliably because the anthropogenic global warming hoax has become one of the chief false flags flown by today's fascists to cover their continuing campaign to plunder and enslave their countrymen.

Remember, the same clumsy effort to put a "scientific" gloss on something the "Liberals" tried earlier came with the eugenics campaign - started by progressives here in America and spread by other fascists all over the world.

Remember Marx and Engels trying to lay down the basis for "scientific socialism" back in the 19th Century? Fascists love pretending that they're "scientific."

That a law enforcement officer of the state of Virginia is seeking information of UVa pertinent to "research" funded by money extorted from the productive (i.e., the private) sector I consider nothing more than a belated fulfillment of one of the very few legitimate responsibilities of the agency charged with "breaking things and killing people."

The pursuit of malefactors who have perpetrated theft of value by fraud is something that even us non-fascists concede to be needful. Ever read Thomas Paine's *Common Sense* on the difference between "society" and "government"?

Is Mr. Cuccinelli demanding PERSONAL and private information of Dr. Mann and of the administrators of UVa, or is his investigative demand focused appropriately upon matters exclusively pertinent to Dr. Mann's professional (i.e., taxpayer-funded) activities related to his catastrophic AGW alarmism?

And calling a "witch hunt" the pursuit of a person (and his accessories) of whom there is more than reasonable suspicion of such theft of value is wonderfully deceptive emotionalism masquerading as gravitas, ain't it?
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Tsk. St. Woodrow's veto of the Volstead Act was principally on technical grounds. He was fascistically foursquare in favor of alcohol prohibition, and enforced it with progressive enthusiasm.

The fact that he was also a racist just adds piquancy to the "Liberal" heritage, doesn't it? So did his heir, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, prove himself to be. Anyone genuinely well-read in the military history of America's involvement in World War II (as opposed to those simply suckered by "Liberal" propaganda extolling minimal and utterly insignificant sops such as the Tuskegee Airmen) is sharply conscious of FDR's thoroughgoing racial bigotry in wasting the human resources offered willingly by America's Black population during that conflict.

Study what FDR's U.S. Army did with the 2nd Cavalry Division (built around the long-serving professional Regular Army 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments, the real "Buffalo Soldiers") AFTER it had been sealifted to the North African theater of operations and put into the field. The unit might have been dismounted to provide a "leg" infantry division (as was done with the 1st Cavalry Division in the Pacific), or its battalions converted to mechanized reconnaissance units. Instead, its component regiments and battalions were simply broken up to serve as rear-echelon service troops, wasting formed and trained combat assets badly needed in the war against the rival fascists of Italy and Germany.

Such was not done with even the most raddled and incapable all-White National Guard divisions, and the 2nd Cavalry was largely made up of Regular Army components.

Hm. Strong racist component in the "Liberal" mindset, despite the modern "Liberal" effort to masquerade as the advocates of advancement among the more melanotic of our citizenry.
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Will Smith August 29th, 2010 | 6:37pm

Reading Rich Matarese is like slogging through American history cantos of Ezra Pound.

Yes August 29th, 2010 | 10:32pm

Rich, you've linked to a crackpot website and you've identified the political views of 99% of Americans as fascist. Why not present some constructive opinions?

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And this "Will Smith" fella reminds me of Christopher Guest's "Deteriorata" (written for National Lampoon's excellent *Radio Dinner* album back in 1972), particularly when you get to the line that reads:

"Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most souls
Would scarcely get your feet wet."

Anybody for a rousing sing-along to the same artist's "Middle-Class Liberal Well-Intentioned Blues"?
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Jason McCain August 29th, 2010 | 9:55pm

John: Great point. CO2 is measured in parts per million. It is rising in parts per million which is insignificant.

The sun is a variable star. That's the cause of global warming and global cooling.

The total temperature change measured -- after NOAA massages it to inflate it -- is less than one degree change. Historical records shows much larger changes through natural processes.

But facts mean nothing to the secular religion of environmentalism. Without a cause to save the world, like AGW, they would have a meaningless life. Come to think of it...

Jason

Jason McCain August 29th, 2010 | 9:59pm

"Yes" (anonymous poster): We know how the peer reviewed paper scheme and argument work. We learned all about that during the Climategate scandal. You might remember that Mann was involved in the cabal who suppressed dissenting scientific papers.

Jason McCain August 29th, 2010 | 10:06pm

Will Smith asks

"Put like that, what are the chances that an 'infinitesimal (.04%) trace gas' would be responsible for all the life on any given planet!"

Zero. None. Nada. The same chance that global warming is caused by man. Great point Will.

Will Smith August 29th, 2010 | 7:24pm

Old Ez: "Kinda like putting emphasis on the Ã¢â?¬Å?distinctions between” lymphoma and leukemia, I suppose. Important to the histopathology people and the oncologists (different prognoses, different chemotherapeutic approaches, etc.), but to the patient?"

Facts: Nitrogen constitutes 78% of the atmosphere, oxygen 21% and trace gases just 1%. Water vapor is the most significant trace gas and the most significant green house gas (GHG). According to IPCC technical reports carbon dioxide is the least significant trace gas both by volume and by Global Warming Potential (GWP).

Question: What are the chances an infinitesimal (.04%) trace gas (CO2), essential to photosynthesis and therefore life on this planet, is responsible for runaway Global Warming?

Answer: Infinitesimal

Discussion: The IPCC now agrees. See the IPCC Technical Report section entitled Global Warming Potential (GWP). And the GWP for CO2? Just 1, (one), unity, the lowest of all green house gases (GHG). What’s more, trace gases which include GHG constitute less than 1% of the atmosphere. Of that 1%, water vapor, the most powerful GHG, makes ups 40% of the total. Carbon dioxide is 1/10th of that amount, an insignificant .04%. If carbon dioxide levels were cut in half to 200PPM, all plant growth would stop according to agricultural scientists. It's no accident that commercial green house owner/operators invest heavily in CO2 generators to increase production, revenues and profits. Prof. Michael Mann's Bristle cone tree proxy data (Hockey stick) proves nothing has done more to GREEN (verb) the planet over the past few decades than moderate sun-driven warming (see solar inertial motion) together with elevated levels of CO2, regardless of the source. None of these facts have been reported in the national media. Why?

Yes August 29th, 2010 | 7:39pm

Wait, Rich doesn't have dozens of peer-reviewed journal articles? And he wastes his time linking to crackpot websites and presenting crackpot ideas? Oh, Rich.

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So submitting to "Liberalism" is "the same as being run over by a bus"? Hm. Never heard it having been put quite that way, but what the heck. I can go with it.

Nice article just hit the 'Net, "Political Taxonomy" by writer L. Neil Smith, in which is found the observation that:

"...At the root, all politics breaks down into a choice between some variety of collectivism, and individualism.

"Between those who believe that, at need, you or I can be killed, and cooked, and eaten for the greater good of something that they've defined as bigger or more important than we are Ã¢â?¬â? and those who don't."

He goes on to speak of "left-wing socialism" and:

"...the 'right-wing socialism' of a George W. Bush. 'Progressives' (like 'liberal', simply another euphemism for socialist) won't acknowledge it because they find their fraternal-twin relationship with it embarrassing. Conservatives stick their fingers in their ears and chant 'I can't hear you!' over and over again, hoping that you'll go away."

Of course,

"...no matter what it calls itself, any regime that takes what belongs to you Ã¢â?¬â? your rights, your property, your life Ã¢â?¬â? in order to achieve some goal that you didn't choose and may not approve of, is sacrificing you for whatever it represents to be something bigger and more important than you are. And that, by definition, is socialism."

So, yeah, there's a definite "Manichean" determinant here. Just like what one expects when a clinical pathologist puts a specimen under the microscope and the guys up in the operating room call down to ask "So is it malignant or isn't it?"

Individual rights are the political (and moral) basis of voluntary association among human beings. What we've got with "Liberals" and other fascists is INVOLUNTARY. Coercive. "Work as we command or you're going to prison! Resist and we're going to kill you!"

Y'know. All that "Liberal" feel-good kinda stuff by virtue of which we're supposed to believe that the pistol and the billy club on Officer Friendly's hip (and the ninja-clad SWAT squaddies at his beck and call) are there for our benefit.
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And then Gascan claims that his utterly unsupported opinion of what Dr. Feynman would or would not wish to be done with "his words" (specifically, his CalTech 1974 commencement address) should be accepted - again without support - as "right."

Well, there's the fundamental condition of the warmist True Believer, "...so mercifully free of the ravages of intelligence."
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